Defense lawyers for would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh quietly visited the president’s private golf course in West Palm Beach last month.
The visit was carried out in secret on February 25 and is only now just coming to light.
The tour was confirmed in newly revealed court filings and first reported by CBS News, as Routh’s defense team prepare him to face federal trial this September for allegedly plotting to take Donald Trump’s life during a golf outing.
Routh has been charged for attempting to assassinate Trump in the run-up to last year’s presidential election.
Last week, Trump publicly mused about ‘suspicious’ FBI delays in releasing investigative findings from two near-fatal assassination attempts including Routh’s botched attack and the dramatic shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania last July.
Routh’s attorneys were granted rare and extraordinary access to Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course, the very site where prosecutors say Routh aimed a rifle at Trump from behind shrubbery on September 15, 2024.
The plot was foiled when Routh was spotted by a sharp-eyed Secret Service agent.
Federal authorities accuse Routh of aiming his rifle at the agent, who then opened fire.
Defense lawyers for Ryan Routh quietly visited Trump’s private golf course in West Palm Beach last month
Federal authorities accuse Routh of aiming his rifle at the a Secret Service Agent, who then opened fire. Routh is seen during his arrest on September 16, 2024
Law enforcement personnel investigate the area around Trump International Golf Club after an an attempted assassination attempt on Trump in September
It caused Routh to drop his weapon and he fled without firing a shot. Prosecutors say he left a note behind describing his intentions.
While the Secret Service and Trump’s camp have stayed silent, prosecutors have acknowledged that it was ‘highly unusual’ for defense lawyers to make such a visit.
‘We took the lead in setting up arrangements for this visit even though the prosecution team obviously does not control the course, which is private property,’ prosecutors noted in court documents.
The Justice Department has also revealed how they arranged the transport of the alleged assassination rifle and ammunition from the FBI’s Quantico lab to South Florida, all at the request of the defense.
‘To accommodate a defense request, the prosecution team ensured that the firearm, scope, magazine, ammunition, and antiballistic plates were transported… so the defense could inspect it,’ prosecutors disclosed – another move the FBI called ‘highly unusual.’
In a March 3 court filing, prosecutors added, “As we told defense counsel, their request to inspect the firearm in this manner was highly unusual in the experience of the FBI, but nonetheless we made it happen.”
Meanwhile, Trump himself has been fanning the flames of suspicion over both assassination attempts, hinting at sinister forces possibly working behind the scenes.
Speaking from the Resolute Desk on Thursday, Trump dropped stunning new details, cryptically referencing ‘three apps, two of which were foreign’ and Routh’s possession of ‘six cell phones’, some allegedly bearing ‘strange markings.’
On Thursday Donald Trump revealed more about the FBI reports into his near assassination attempts in 2024
Routh’s defense team are preparing him to face federal trial this September for allegedly plotting to take Trump’s life during a golf outing last year
The Justice Department has also revealed how they arranged the transport of the alleged assassination rifle and ammunition, pictured, from the FBI’s Quantico lab to South Florida
Routh, a registered Democrat, was convicted in 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction
Images revealed the backpack, GoPro camera and AK-47 style rifle that the gunman left behind
‘When you have three apps and two of them are foreign, and you had an FBI that wouldn’t report on it, they didn’t want to say why I would say that could be suspicious,’ Trump said, raising questions about what federal investigators might be keeping under wraps.
Trump seemed increasingly skeptical of the official investigations into both attempts on his life.
‘Other people think that [something bigger is going on],’ Trump said. ‘It makes me think it a little bit too.’
And as for the long-delayed FBI reports, Trump teased the possibility of releasing them himself, only to walk back the comment moments later.
‘I would be willing to release it… I want to see that one myself,’ he said, before adding, ‘I mean that maybe there’s a reason that we shouldn’t.’
The Routh family name was further tarnished by a separate bombshell: six days after the failed assassination attempt, federal agents searched the home of Routh’s son, Oran Routh, in North Carolina where they uncovered hundreds of images of child porn across multiple devices.
Although prosecutors insist the search was originally unrelated to the assassination attempt, they confirmed that correspondence between Ryan and Oran Routh is now part of the federal assassination case evidence in Florida, suggesting potentially troubling links.
Trump pumps his fist after getting shot in the ear on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania
Oran Routh, the son of the gunman accused of trying to kill Donald Trump, has been taken into federal custody in North Carolina for child pornography charges
Oran Routh has since pleaded guilty, acknowledging the images involved ‘a prepubescent minor and minor who had not attained 12 years of age.’
He is set to be sentenced on May 14, while his father, Ryan Routh, remains held in federal custody facing life in prison if convicted.
As for the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, carried out by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed by Secret Service agents, that too remains shrouded in mystery.
Trump has alluding to unanswered questions about Crooks’s motivations, connections, and digital footprint.
‘I want to find the answers,’ Trump declared last week, adding that ‘we can no longer blame Biden for that one.’
The FBI’s last detailed briefing for the Butler case was in August 2024, while the last major update for the Florida shooting was in September.
